Well, here's the next chapter, it practically wrote itself . . . I may have been hyped up on energy drink while writing it. (Also sort of drinking one now, so that's the reason why Sephiroth drinking energy drinks popped up).

Keith: Yes . . . I am slightly worried about your new found fascination with energy drinks.
Liulfr: But . . . you know me and being a night owl.
Keith: Yes, you are a sloth in the mornings . . .
Liulfr: *stares at computer screen with ideas in mind*
Keith: *EYETWITCH* No, no sloths. Don't you dare even think of putting a sloth in the building!
Liulfr: But, but it would be awesome! Seriously! I can just imagine it!
Keith: No. I can already deal with the experiments, but a sloth is just pushing the envelope too far.
Liulfr: Fine . . . I won't put a sloth in . . .
Keith: Well then, as usual, Liulfr does not own the FFVII franchise, otherwise if she did, there would be sloths.

Here's the chapter! Thanks to ashleighpoole68 for giving me the opportunity to write up a prompt that was already sitting on my list but I hadn't found the write time to insert in into the story!

Chapter 13: Work Day Woes

The chapter where we see some complaining.

And Sephiroth gets introduced to energy drinks.

Prompt: I would like to see one of the meetings between Sephiroth, Keith, and Tseng and who they complain about. (ashleighpoole68)

-o0o-

It was that time of the week again, 6pm on a Saturday night where Tseng, Sephiroth and Keith all congregated in Keith's office to discuss the crap that had occurred during the week (Sundays did not count).

Afterwards they would grab dinner at the Chocolate Ranch because they all needed ice – cream to make up for the energy they would spend ranting about the more useless of their subordinates.

They only used Keith's office for these weekly meetings as . . .

His office was the only one they knew that wasn't bugged with cameras.

It was company policy to not have a SOLDIER unmonitored throughout the building (unless they were with trusted staff) after a mako injection in case there were any negative reactions. It had happened once before and a 2nd Class SOLDIER had scratched the skin off his arms before someone ran into him in one of the break rooms.

That meant there were cameras in Sephiroth's office and they had no idea who might turn on the monitors at any given point.

The Turk floor was of course, covered in hidden cameras for security reasons and also stealth training.

So it was really only safe to discuss such things in Keith's office as his room was probably the only unmonitored room in the entire building.

Sephiroth was the first to arrive, as he always liked being on time and plus Keith had sort of only given Jin – chan to Tseng about two days ago, so the Wutainian man was probably passing Jin – chan off to a Junior Turk while he stepped out of the office.

"I heard you took in a Tonberry?"

Keith just smiled at the curiosity in Sephiroth's voice, the General had just come back from a eight day mission in Junon and so had missed both escapee fiascos. He would have to introduce Tony to Sephiroth at some point in the future, but for now he needed to answer the question.

"Omael was rather shocked to find Hollander had even gotten his hands on a Tonberry, but as usual it escaped and I found myself with a new straggler. Although I sort of won its respect when I caught its knife and threw it back at it. His name is Tony and he's working in the kitchens with Bob now. Tony makes an excellent stew."

Sephiroth merely raised an eyebrow in response before taking a seat, dressed a bit more casually as wearing leather for an extended period of time was not the most comfortable clothing option one would choose.

Today he wore a pair of black slacks, a comfortable set of ankle boots and a dark green button up shirt. He of course left the top three buttons loose, wearing the coat for so many years had made him develop a habit of exposing his chest, and it wasn't like there was anyone who made a fuss over it.

Tseng waltzed in a few minutes later, his suit pristine as always but his hair was a little windblown (that was probably Jin – chan's fault), and once he shut the door behind him, his posture became more relaxed, his shoulders dropped and he rested his weight on one leg. The Turk Second in Command almost collapsed into his preferred seat, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling (a sight that most would be alarmed to see), letting out a groan as he dragged a hand across his face.

"Let me guess, Hollander waylaid you on the way here demanding his 'lab subject' back?" Keith could read Tseng like an open book, so it was no surprise that Tseng nodded in response to his question, sliding his hair tie off and running a hand through his raven locks to work out the soreness from tying his hair back so tightly all day.

"Yes, he was quite insistent until I mentioned that he should consult you if he wants Jin – chan back. Hollander left immediately afterwards, and I am quite pleased to note he looked rather green around the gills. I'm rather curious as to how you threatened him this time, since apparently last week's incidence hasn't deterred him." At Tseng's words, Sephiroth quickly turned in his seat knowing that there was a hilarious tale to be told.

"Do I want to know how you reacted to a Tonberry being in the building?" Sephiroth asked with a smirk on his lips, not at all deterred by the glower on Keith's face as the janitor recalled the incident.

"He nearly threw Hollander out a window. Cracked it rather heavily too." Tseng answered for Keith, as the janitor in question was grinding his teeth from merely remembering how pissed he had been at the portly scientist. Sephiroth was pouting now, clearly upset that he had missed out on seeing Keith manhandle Hollander but would probably ask Reno for surveillance tapes in the future.

"The whole building could hear Keith screaming, none of them were happy to learn that Hollander had placed everyone's safety at risk."

"Oh, just you wait till you hear about what Hollander wanted next! Omael personally shredded the paperwork himself."

And so they began to complain about their week.

-o0o-

Tseng complained about the usual.

The President was continuously letting himself get caught in compromising positions that the Turks had to quickly sweep under the rug, otherwise the company would have been bankrupt from paying off blackmail a long time ago. The only new developments recently were that AVALANCHE were laying low after their mole in the Records Department had been caught, meaning that the Turks had not a lot to work on which gave them twitchy trigger fingers. Already he had to throw random missions to five senior Turks that had nearly taken each other's heads off in a brawl, along with pay cuts to really get the message to sink in.

Sephiroth wasn't too happy about the recent batch of cadets, most of whom had dropped out to either infantry or the janitorial department. The few that stayed weren't too promising, but they had to work with what they had. His trip to Junon hadn't been a great as it could have been, the major reason he was there in the first place was to sort out some . . . internal issues that apparently only he could fix.

It turned out that there was an underground fighting ring that some SOLDIER's had gotten themselves involved in, and it was giving SHINRA a bad name. Thus sending the General to kick their asses into shape showed that SHINRA had a least a sense of responsibility. (But most people were already aware of how bad their public image was, without the PR department they would have lost the support of the public ages ago).

It took twice as long as it should have, because most of the time Sephiroth was either sulking on top of the Sister Ray Cannon (due to being harassed to do some actual work the one week he decided to have a lazy week) or wandering through Junon in a big game of hide and seek with his Turk escorts (that problem was due to the man overseeing the mission pissing them all off, and they thoroughly enjoyed driving the arrogant bastard crazy by popping up in the most weirdest of places they could find throughout Junon).

At some point Sephiroth had gotten bored, and decided he wanted to return to Midgar. So in the span of one day, he and the Turks assigned to the mission found the underground fighting ring, apprehended the people in charge (the prize being a bunch of illegally obtained mako drugs) and dragged the guilty SOLDIER's back to base.

Sephiroth had also gained a wonderful photo of the shell – shocked mission overseer and was going to add it to the Wall of Idiots that he hung up in the back of his office. It was usually covered by a potted plant that Angeal had given to him, and while the Barona raised SOLDIER was happy to see Sephiroth kept it alive, his silver haired friend hadn't yet found the time (or the guts) to explain its actual purpose for being in his office.

Keith's woes were of the SOLDIER cadet dropouts that were wasting his supplies and testing his patience, he was very close to actually ripping their contracts up and shipping them back off to wherever they came from. The threat of being deported might actually be a good idea to motivate them, as they were arrogant little snots that probably boasted they would get into SOLDIER no problem and they would be on important missions the next time their families saw them.

But his main problem was currently some uppity little bureaucrat from the Junon branch who had turned up five days ago, and was intent on fucking everything up for him.

His views were that janitors were the lowest of the low, and regarded Keith's workers as little more than cattle, ordering them around to get coffee or lunch for him even if they were in the middle of cleaning up someone else's mess. Even when constantly reminded the janitors are not errand boys, the man threatened to get them fired for not obeying him, and had actually gone to the President today demanding that the janitors attitudes needed to be fixed.

President SHINRA had immediately replied that the man would have to talk to Keith about the matter, and so Keith had been given a memo that the snot nosed bigot had insisted on a meeting for 6am on Monday morning. Keith certainly wasn't going to attend that meeting, and had said nothing in reply. The man didn't even have the brains find out what Keith looked like, so Keith would be perfectly fine wandering through the Tower as always if the man tried to find him. The entire Tower was pissed off at the man as well, so it was an unspoken unanimous decision that they wouldn't even bother to point the man in the right direction.

It also turned out the man was a direct cousin of Connors, so perhaps bigotry ran in the family?

But they had spent about forty – five minutes grousing about the morons they had to deal with, when Keith remembered a conversation he had with Omael.

"Oh yeah, Sephiroth. I spoke with Omael about alternative sources for your sugar intake."

In their last meeting, Sephiroth had mentioned how it was hard to carry around a bunch of chocolate with him for missions, because they would run out quickly and melt just as fast. Keith promised to ask Omael if there was another option for Sephiroth that would fit within his sugar requirements, and after a late night shopping run . . .

Sephiroth perked up at this, he had been running low on his chocolate stash and needed to go out to restock it, but hadn't had the time to do so yet.

"Did he find an alternative?"

Sephiroth was very picky as he wanted whatever he was going to consume to at least taste alright.

"Yes, but we aren't sure how you would feel about the taste. Here, try this." Keith held out a clear plastic water bottle, containing a yellow liquid that rather looked like urine but had carbon dioxide bubbles in it.

"It's a drink, definitely not bodily fluids." Keith reassured him, unscrewing the cap to let a sweet, sugary smell fill the room.

Sephiroth had been running low on sugar already, so it was no surprise that the General snatched the bottle up and took a swig.

Judging from the wide eyes and jittery hands, Sephiroth certainly did like the drink.

"What is this?" He asked, before taking a slower sip but held the bottle possessively in his hands. Clearly he approved of this alternative sugar source, and Keith would gladly inform Omael that the alternative was a success.

"Energy drink, that brand particularly is called Lift Plus. The other energy drinks sort of taste the same, but might have a slightly varied flavour. They're cheap to buy in bulk, but it's mostly an energy stimulant that the night shift workers tend to buy. We ran into one of the night shift guards bringing a pack and asked him what it was. You can buy it in most stores, so I guess that you approve of it?"

Sephiroth just nodded eagerly while taking another sip, and Keith was looking forward to see how quickly Sephiroth burned through the liquid stimulant.

A hyped up Sephiroth was a funny sight to see, something both Tseng and Keith had witnessed after one chocolate bar too many.

"Well, I'll just let Omael know that it worked, and then we can go get dinner. Sound good?" Keith whipped out his PHS and was already pulling up a new message for Omael, while Tseng watched in amusement as Sephiroth quickly drained the plastic bottle.

"I'll go check on Jin – chan and I'll be ready to go." Tseng rose from his chair and headed out the door, Sephiroth making an aborted move to follow him to get his keys and coat that he always left in his office before hand, but was flailing a hand at Keith with pleading eyes that was the general signal that he needed another chocolate bar. But in this case, he was probably asking for another drink.

Keith snickered but handed over a small bag of the canned energy drink, quickly snapping a picture at the absolute delight on Sephiroth's face, before the man became a silver blur as he raced out the door.

Ah yes, things never got boring around here in the SHINRA tower.

-o0o-

The next day, both MidTweet and Tumblr crashed and burned when someone uploaded a picture of Sephiroth buying a trolley crammed to the brim with energy drinks.

And if Keith happened to be the one manning the camera . . .

Well, who could blame him?

-o0o-

A/N: And there's the chapter! Hope you enjoyed it!

Next chapter: Chapter 14: Adventures With Glitter

Also on a side note, would people like to Chapter 15 to be:

A) Mother Bear Meet Chocobo Chick

or

B) 21st Birthday Celebrations

PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

LiulfrLokison out! :3